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One of the many joys of Christmas is the time afforded to set aside our daily activities and, armed with a mulled wine or hot cocoa, pick up a Christmas Cozy and tune out the world. Once again accomplished crime writer Vicki Delany has served up just such a diversion, with a tale that will entertain while suggesting aromas of cinnamon and gingerbread and all the other good things that come to mind as we wind up yet another year.
The aptly-named town of Rudolph, New York is dedicated to celebrating Christmas year round, and with December 25th fast approaching the merchants are anticipating a successful season when plans go ominously awry. Jack Olsen and his wife Grace own the town's exclusive and highly-successful Yuletide Inn. When he suffers a heart attack and is taken to hospital it's clear that he'll need someone to look after the inn during what may be a long recovery. He calls on his son Gord to take his place; it proves to be a fateful decision for the entire town.
Gord and his wife Irene are not long in arriving in Rudolph, and from the start things go from bad to worse. Armed with a power of attorney signed by his father, Gord is a micromanager with unbridled ambitions. First he wants to downgrade the inn's menu in order to increase profits, cutting out local suppliers in favour of generic and mass-produced foodstuffs. Predictably, this enrages the head chef. Then he brings in some executives from a national chain of budget-based hotels; his plan is to sell the Yuletide Inn to them and develop the grounds around it to generate still more profit.
The townspeople are scandalised: they pride themselves on offering a signature Christmas experience to visitors and shoppers, and Gord's tacky strategies and shameless greed threaten the reputation - and sales prospects - of the entire community.
But before Gordon has a chance to put his plans into motion, the town gets a Christmas surprise: someone has stabbed Gord Olsen through the heart - with, for good measure, a steak knife from the Yuletide Inn. It seems his grandiose plans for the town are on permanent hold.
Although there is no shortage of suspects, the police focus almost immediately on Noel Wilkenson. The official town Santa, Noel and his wife had been dining with the owners of the Yuletide Inn, Jack and Grace Olsen, shortly before Gord's body was discovered. But Noel had left the inn before the others, and had no alibi for the time of Gord's death. He also had a steak for dinner, and his knife is missing from the dining table.
Enter Merry Wilkenson. She runs an upmarket gift shop, Mrs. Claus's Treasures, that specialises in handcrafted decorations and collectables. More to the point, Noel is her father, and she can't accept that he murdered Gord. When he is taken in for questioning by the town police, the headlines are not long in appearing: Rudolph Town Santa arrested for murder! In particular, the nearby village of Muddle Harbor, jealous of Rudolph's success in drawing in tourists, is quick to hop on the bandwagon, hoping to capitalise on the town's problems.
Anxious to clear her father's name, Merry Wilkenson pokes her nose into the investigation, But in a small town, everyone knows everyone's business, and before long she finds herself caught up in the case.
Vicki Delany is a gifted and prolific novelist, and this second novel in her series Year Round Christmas mysteries does not disappoint. The perfect read for an evening in front of the fireplace, with a gentle snowstorm swirling outside the window, it offers a refreshing interlude in an increasingly strident world.
§ Since 2005 Jim Napier's reviews and interviews have appeared in several Canadian newspapers and on various crime fiction and literary websites, including his own award-winning site, Deadly Diversions. He can be reached at jnapier@deadlydiversions.com
Reviewed by Jim Napier, December 2016
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